1:5a
He predestined us: The verb predestined means “to decide something beforehand” or “to determine ahead of time what one plans to do.” The pronoun He refers to “God.”
Here are some other ways to translate this verb:
God had already decided (Good News Translation)
-or-
God decided in advance (New Living Translation (2004))
for adoption as His sons: This is a passive. If it would be more natural in your language to make this active, you can say:
God would adopt us as His children
In some languages, it is redundant or even confusing to include the phrase as His sons along with the noun adoption. If this is the case in your language, you can simply say:
God would adopt us
for adoption: The word adoption means “to make someone your child” or “to accept another child into your family as your own.”
Here are some other ways to translate this word:
to be his sons (Revised Standard Version)
-or-
make us his children (Good News Translation)
through Jesus Christ: The phrase through Jesus Christ tells how God made us his children. He did it by means of (or because of) what Jesus Christ has done. In some languages, there are special ways to express this, for example:
by the hand of Jesus Christ
-or-
because of what Jesus Christ did
1:5b
according to the good pleasure of His will: The Greek phrase that the Berean Standard Bible literally translates as according to the good pleasure of His will uses the word pleasure emphasizes the delight God felt in making his decision in 1:5a.
Here are some other ways to translate this phrase:
this was his pleasure and purpose (Good News Translation)
-or-
that was what he wanted and what pleased him (New Century Version)
In some languages it is good to begin a new sentence here with some introduction, for example:
⌊God did this⌋ according to the good pleasure of His will…
Also in many languages the translation will be clearer if you change the nouns pleasure and will into verbs, for example:
because it pleased him and this is what he wanted to do
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